


there will be time

by pipistrelle



Series: there is a season [2]
Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Domestic, F/F, Fluff, Sickeningly Sweet, briar's book spoilers, mentions of briar's book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 05:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1334458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipistrelle/pseuds/pipistrelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You are the most frustratingly brilliant woman I’ve ever known, and you haven’t had a full night’s sleep in a week."</p><p>Neither one of the two greatest plant mages in the world can keep themselves going. Luckily, they have Lark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there will be time

**Author's Note:**

> This started as an attempt to write a ficlet based on the prompt "huddling under covers", and an adorable headcanon by tumblr user trischandlers (see end notes for link). It got away from me slightly, as writing Lark/Rosethorn tends to do. 
> 
> Set maybe six months after Briar's Book. Pure, horribly sappy fluff.

“Rosie,” Lark said from somewhere far away.

Rosethorn ignored her, focusing on the notes spread out on her worktable. They were getting hard to read; Crane’s familiar, spidery script was beginning to blur into the hurried chicken-scratch of his various scribes, and even the sheets printed in her own neat hand were starting to waver.

She blinked and rubbed at her watering eyes, ordering them to behave. She was so close. She could almost see the answer. Like the first germinating tip sprouting from a seed, she was pushing her way through endless earth, knowing that somewhere close were sunlight and rain, knowing that all she had to do was break through that last inch of topsoil and --

The carefully delineated lists of drams and droplets disappeared under a fold of heavy cloth. A soft, heavy weight bowed her towards the table, and Rosethorn’s hands registered the worn quilt draped over her shoulders. She looked up, blinking, and struggled to focus her eyes on a Lark-shaped blur standing next to the table. “Something for you?”

 “Yes,” Lark said. “You.”

 “What?” Now that the germinating-seed exhilaration was fading, Rosethorn was becoming aware of a vicious headache. Her thoughts were slow and tangled as her speech; it was a feeling she hated.

 “You are for me,” Lark said. “Come to bed, Rosie.”

 “I am _working_ ,” Rosethorn grumbled.

 “I know. You said the same thing this morning, and at midday, and two hours ago when I tried to pry you away for midnight services. Briar told me when you wouldn’t look up from those blasted notes. He hasn’t said a word to me apart from ‘She’s working’ for three days.” Lark rested a hand on Rosethorn’s cheek. Her touch was warm, her skin scented with rose geranium from her own work rubbing oil into cloth. “He’s worried sick about you, by the way. It took Daja and Sandry both to drag him off to bed. If you won’t look after yourself, you could at least remember that he does everything you do and will work himself into the ground right alongside you if you let him.”

 Lark’s voice was still soft, but there was plenty of strength behind it. Rosethorn shifted uncomfortably. “He’s a smart boy," she protested.

 “ _You_ are the most frustratingly brilliant woman I’ve ever known, and you haven’t had a full night’s sleep in a week. If you’re trying to imply that intelligence gives you knowledge of your own limits, I will be sure you are delusional,” Lark said firmly. “Put those gods-blasted papers away and come to bed. Now.”

 Rosethorn sat up straighter in her chair. The quilt should have fallen off her shoulders, but it clung to her, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to shrug it off no matter how much her pride might demand that she try. Not that she would really want to be rid of it; a cold breeze blew in from the open shutters on the garden window, a hint of the coming autumn. “I almost have it,” she said. “I almost have the last part of the formula. I’ve got to get it before Crane does, this time. You’ve seen how he turns his nose up at me since the blue pox, smug and lordly like it was all him, like I counted for nothing -- and Briar, and Tris -- as if he wasn’t bad enough before, convinced his precious greenhouse ornaments come from Mila’s own fields, the pretentious bleater --”

 Her speech was getting thicker, bogging down as her temper rose, but Lark understood. “You know that’s just his way of showing he’s relieved,” she sighed. “Anyway, where do you think I’ve just been?”

 Rosethorn stared. It was strange, at such a late hour, that Lark was in her habit and not her nightgown. “You went to Crane’s?”

 “I put him to bed an hour ago, and made Osprey promise to keep him there until at least dawn,” Lark said with a grin. “Honestly, sometimes I don’t know how you two managed before you met me.”

 “Yelling and sex, mostly,” Rosethorn said absently. Crane forced to bed an hour ago...

 Lark saw the direction of her thoughts. “Yes, you’ve got an hour’s head start on him for tomorrow’s work. Now will you come to bed?”

 Rosethorn wasn’t sure she’d have a choice; the quilt was wrapping around her, effectively trapping her in a cocoon of soft warmth, and the glint in Lark’s eyes said the argument was over. Still, Rosethorn smiled as she rose from the chair and let Lark put an arm around her waist. “You’re on my side,” she said, sounding smug.

 Lark, who usually steadfastly refused to take sides in the petty competitions between the two greatest plant mages in the world, only smiled. “I hope you never doubted that, my love. But don’t tell Crane; he does so love to complain about you to a sympathetic ear.”

 Rosethorn cackled. Lark’s smile widened. “Oh, how I have missed that sound,” she sighed. “I suffer when you disappear into your work like this, you know.”

 “Not as much as he’ll suffer when I beat him.” Rosethorn managed to work one arm free of her cocoon and grabbed the shoulder of Lark’s habit. One tug brought Lark close enough for Rosethorn to rise to the tips of her toes and kiss her.

 Lark disentangled herself after a long minute and shook her head. “Bed,” she said firmly. “No more distractions. By all the gods, the children are better about bedtime than you!”

 “You know they stay up past curfew talking,” Rosethorn said around a yawn. She tapped the side of her head. “Up here.”

 “I don’t care.” Lark had steered them into her own room, which had an actual bed instead of Rosethorn’s meager cot. She let go, but Rosethorn didn’t stop; a week of frantic days and long nights had finally caught up to her, and she sank onto the mattress, taking the quilt with her. Lark changed into a nightgown and crawled in beside her; she was already asleep.

 Lark wrapped her arms around Rosethorn. As she had every day since the blue pox, she thanked Mila for how solid the other woman felt, how real -- so far from the breathless ghost she had been, eaten down to her bones by disease.

 The memory haunted Lark, but those days were over, and would never return. At her silent command, the quilt spread out to cover both of them, warm and soft, rising and falling with the gentle motion of their breathing.

 With a prayer of thanks for all blessings, Lark closed her eyes and followed the woman she loved into sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Link to the original headcanon that prompted this: http://trischandlers.tumblr.com/post/76639934685/i-just-sort-of-had-this-thought-that-when-its-not
> 
> I feel like it turned into a slightly different beast, but trischandlers is great and you should go check out her tumblr.


End file.
